Direct marketing continues to grow a rapid pace. As a result, direct marketing advertisers are constantly looking for new methods for making their direct mailings more effective and attractive. Additionally, direct marketing advertisers are looking for ways to more accurately targeting their direct marketing advertisers to consumers more likely to actually buy the product or engage the service. Further, direct marketing advertisers are seeking ways of more effectively measuring the effectiveness of and response to their direct marketing advertisements.
Currently, there are a number of different types of direct marketing advertisements. For example, one form of direct marketing advertisement involves the use of direct mailing. Generally, this type of advertising is effective with a few recipients, but most recipients are annoyed and some actually become alienated from having to deal with this unwanted and unsolicited mail. Other examples of direct marketing advertisement involve the use of pop-up advertisements or mass mailing of internet or web related information. Again these types of advertising are effective with a few recipients, but most recipients are annoyed and some actually become alienated from having to deal with these advertising attempts. Additionally, some intended recipients are able to block these advertisements to prevent even an initial receipt and viewing of the advertising message.
At the same time as direct marketing has grown, digital photography also has and continues to experience substantial growth. Consumers are not only able to capture digital images with an array of different types of cameras, but also with a variety of other devices which now have image capture capabilities, such as mobile phones and other PDAs.
Interestingly, although the volume of digital image capture has and continues to substantially expand, picture takers are not printing these digital images as often as they used to print pictures captured with conventional photographic film. A variety of factors may be influencing this trend, including the perceived high cost obtaining printed pictures of their digital images either at home or through in store or on-line services.